Takala Industries
Founded on Teumessia not long after the granting of that colony's legal independence by its parent corporate authority, Takala Industries set with one goal in mind - compete with OSA. Takala has consistently been a leading producer of short-to-medium runs on personal sidearm weaponry (mainly pistols and machine pistols) for the better part of forty years and shows no sign of slowing down any time soon. Recent developments by the company in rifle technology have earned it some fans amongst specialist mercenary units, but it has a long way to go before it manages to get anywhere near matching OSA in longarm sales. Founded as a family buiness, Takala has managed to keep much of the ethic associated with such companies and has a very high employee retention rate as compared to other companies in the same sector. As a result, research and other areas of development see continued, predictable, increases with very few about-faces in polices or practices - something that helps Takala's share-price gain investor confidence. One area where this has been a benefit is the extent to which sales agents actually develop consistent relationships with client groups. Feedback from "end-users" of Takala's product is routinely input back into the development process, earning the company a more responsive reputation than OSA and a significant market-share among small-to-medium scale paramilitary and law enforcement groups. Added to their focus on customisation, this gives Takala a considerable competitive advantage over Soji and OSA. Takala has been taking some interesting steps in new directions recently, however. Firstly, its focus on high-grade, precision weaponry has earned some large sales to some of the larger mercenary companies. Second, it's begun developing its own power-suit technology to compete with OSA. Market commentators are especially excited about this last development given the more fluid nature of Takala's research culture over OSA's, leading some to suggest that Takala could conceivably outstrip OSA in this area at some point. The only thing holding them back, unfortunately, is the scale of their operation. With significantly fewer manufacturing assets than OSA, Takala is still somewhat limited in the contracts that it can accept. They are, however, making concerted attempts to come to grips with that deficiency and new Takala manufacturing facilities seem to be opening every year. Takala Weapon Permutation: "Open Source" The main message that Takala takes from its clients is that there are a wide array of circumstances in which their weapons could be used and a wide array of people using them. As a result, they've made sure that their weapons are easily customised with just about any possible addition on the market and are at pains to point this out. The firmware in their systems is very accepting of other technology (even OSA) and integrates well with many peripheral devices. They also seem to be surprisingly tolerant of "innovative" tweaks by users in the field - many of which often earn positive interest from the Takala sales agent if spotted (there's even a "You make it better, we pay you" policy). Any armoury roll made to modify a Takala weapon gains a +2 bonus from the "tolerance" of the weapon. Unfortunately, the firmware can get a bit... "buggy", if too many computerised systems with different manufacturers are routed through the system - often requiring a custom fix from usually very helpful systems technicians at Takala. These fixes do cost a bit extra (typically 10% of the cost of the weapon) but often work - and the attempted attachments can earn some interest as well. In game terms, a Takala weapon without the fix gains a malfunction number, failing to work on a roll of 17 or more regardless of skill. Category:Corporations Category:Corporations to be attached to a Metacorporation